What actually is the right way to approach ‘moving on’? It would seem it is engraved in human nature to be selfish and seek revenge, but what does that really lead to? In Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, for instance, King suggests a brotherhood between blacks and whites rather than dwelling on an unequal past. Suu Kyi even illustrates in John Pilger’s, “Icon of Hope” interview, that the people of Burma cannot progress without a degree of openness to diminish a lack of trust with one another. Chiefly, Mandela’s “Inauguration Speech” suggests that everyone is apart of each other, thus proving there needs to be harmony in a relationship of grievance.
THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE IN AFRICAN LITERATURE & WORLDVIEW "Is it right that a man should abandon his mother tongue for someone else's? It looks like a dreadful betrayal and produces a guilty feeling. But for me there is no other choice. I have been given the language and I intend to use it." -Chinua Achebe, Author of Things Fall Apart.
He states that black people face the same problems, they are still not free and have to suffer a lot like their ancestors did. I feel that behind those words there is one simple question: “Why?” Why is still like that? Why do we still have to suffer and struggle for our freedom? Why don’t we have the same rights though they were granted to us hundred years ago? Where is the justice here?
Colonialism and Beyond in Chinua Achebe's An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, No Longer at Ease, Things Fall Apart, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Emmanuel Nelson's Chinua Achebe, Postcolonial African Writers, Willene Taylor's A Search for Values in Things Fall Apart, Colin Turnbull's he Lonely African This course on colonial and post-colonial literature satisfies my cravings for thought and literature that falls outside of the mainstream of the Eurocentric view of things. Achebe, Walcott, Arundhati, and Kincaid etc. the so-called marginalized- third-world writers provide another perspective, another glimpse of reality as they see and experience it. Hopefully this journal will juxtapose colonial and post-colonial perspectives. I'm also interested in the struggle between the 'old' and the 'new' (tradition vs. modernity) and how this represents itself in African culture and African literature.
For many years now, people have claimed to be “colorblind” to racism to they are not racist. This is usually followed by a statement explaining that they do not see a person’s color because we are all human. Although race is socially constructed, our ethnicities, nationalities, race and cultural experiences make us unique and discounting those experiences under the guise of colorblindness just is not right. Colorblindness creates a society that denies our negative racial experiences, rejects our cultural heritage and invalidates our unique perspectives. After centuries of giving value to the color of a person’s skin, attempting to push race aside now also pushes aside the struggles that many people have gone through because of the value placed on their skin.
He also says: “You know what Europe is?” After this question it seems like he is talking directly to the reader and explains exactly what Europe is – at least to him. The short story is not written in a structured way, where the protagonist tells his story chronically. The protagonist begins the story by talking about how Spain is so close to Africa, yet it is so hard to cross the border. He continuously goes back in time, describing the time his ear got left
Some sell their bodies and drugs to get ahead, not realizing they are doing a disservice to themselves and their community. “It is very popular for African/Caribbean people to deny that slavery still affects our individual beings up to this very day, and, in their quest to appear normal in terms of social integration, they tend to hide themselves under masks of professionalism, academic achievement and self-sufficiency (Hope, 2006).” Slavery has also left social side effects on Caribbean people. “The social side effects of slavery are these: denial, a sense of inferiority/superiority, not acknowledging the inhumanity of it, injustice, continued cruelty, bigotry, racism, denial
He wonders if he did something wrong, coming to the conclusion that he never had a chance to win. After having survived an attack by a mob of black children on the streets of Soweto, attacked by the very people he had been trying to help, Ben du Toit`s thoughts are about how the skin colour makes rapprochement even more difficult. As a white person, he can step in for his black friend but he will always stay white. And as a white he has several privileges he cannot provide to them (“Whether I like it or not […] I am white. This is the small, final, terrifying truth of my broken world.
When King refers to how important “the fierce urgency of Now,” is, he backs up the argument of how the black population is so worn down and disgraced that they just cannot take the shameful respect any longer. To show he recognizes the hesitation of the white citizens, King makes sure his men of color understand that once they have gained their freedom, they must say
Soon after being diagnosed with melanoma he wrote the song “ Redemption Song”. The message of the song speaks of oppression, defeat and freedom all at the same time. Bob Marley’s personal experience of oppression began at birth because he claims, “My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don’t dip on nobody’s side.” (Smith 1).